Effects of Noise on the Nestling Feeding Behaviour of Great Tits Do Not Depend on Noise Characteristics

Noise pollution is one of the leading environmental risks to human health. However, noise effects on the reproduction and behaviour of wild animals have been ambiguous. The reason can be that most studies focus on the effect of one type of noise, while structurally distinct noise types with the same loudness, but with various frequencies may cause different responses due to masking effect. Hence, comparing spectrally different noises in a single study can provide valuable insight into those noise differences, as all other ecological conditions for different experiments are nearly the same. Here, we exposed free-living Great Tits Parus major breeding in nest boxes to three different noise types, such as car traffic, lawnmower, and chainsaw noise, which are common in the breeding habitats of passerines, and investigated these effects on parental provisioning behaviour. We found that noise as such had a negative effect on nest visits but the effect was not detected when analysing noise types separately. These findings do not support the acoustic masking hypothesis, given that structurally different noise types had similar effects on parental provisioning. We suggest that different anthropogenic noises may alter avian reproductive behaviour through disruption and disturbance, potentially having cumulative and negative effects on reproduction.